Well, I guess there’s no backing out now. Las Vegas is getting a domed stadium as well as a National Football League team. Even if we don’t need a pro team, the powers that be believe that we do. But really, did you have to give us THAT team??
NFL officials, government officials, and the media hounds gathered yesterday to turn the ceremonial first spade of dirt, making the nightmare official. When you see this happening, you know its real. You can almost see all the machines firing up and the work beginning. Now it’s real and there is no turning back.
Remember: Turning the first spade of dirt is a lot further than most projects ever get in Las Vegas.
Contrary to keyboard warriors, Las Vegas really could use a 65,000 seat domed stadium without ever needing an NFL team. We have been needing one for many years for all the other things Las Vegas has been missing out on by not having one. Larger concerts, conventions, and events that have bypassed Vegas or that organizers said they could have made it bigger if they just had the room.
Las Vegas is where you show off. When you bring something to Las Vegas, you need to step up your game or stay home. This is not a town where you can do ordinary and survive.
Being the convention capital of North America, we need more room to house special events, private events and expanded events currently not available to us because of the size limitations. Large outdoor events bypass Las Vegas because we don’t have a place for 60,000 people. Now we will.
When you look at Las Vegas for our conventions and events, this is where people expect it to be done bigger, better and so over the top, it leaves you speechless. It really s where events need to go big or go home. With this size of a facility, the dreamers are salivating at what they can do for their clients.
The Future of Las Vegas
As much as I am looking forward to the new events and awesome concerts this place will bring in, I am not looking forward to the dreads of humanity that will come across the California border claiming to be the fans of the “Raider Nation”. Having a continued repeat of the fiasco we had in 2007 when we hosted the NBA All-Star Game is not something I wish upon any chauffeur, dancer or Uber driver. The money MGM lost and the crime and other problems that event brought, will now be repeated 8 times a year, if not more.
Having said that: Having such a venue so close to the Las Vegas Strip will be the biggest selling point for promoters and attendees. So easy to get to from almost anywhere on the Strip. I’m not worried about traffic logistics. The one thing that Vegas is famous for when hosting events, is our ability to move a lot of people quickly and efficiently. The Monorail will be expanded further south, new lanes of traffic created and new walking corridors will assist in moving the large crowds of people around.
The parking situation will be handled in the usual Las Vegas-style; Some white envelopes filled with pictures of dead presidents being passed out around the County Office buildings will assure us that someone connected with people having the last names of Reid or maybe Walters will get the gig to build parking garages on land owned (surprise) by the county and leased for an amazing price of something like one dollar a year.
It’s a Size thing
The surprising thing about the location when you look at it is that from the ground, it doesn’t look like a 66,000 seat stadium could fit or should fit on the sixty-four-acre site. But when seen it from above, courtesy of our photography friend, Tom Donoghue, you get a very different perspective of it all! It has plenty of room! Not really. But it sure looks like it should. I’m sure it will be a tight fit, but we are famous for making tight fits work!
The fact that it will be almost diagonally across the freeway from the home of our first professional sports team, the Vegas Golden Knights, isn’t lost on anyone. I can remember all the times the NFL told us that professional sports would never work here. The NFL swore it would be a cold day in hell before they would ever consider giving Las Vegas a professional franchise.
It took the NHL and the Golden Knights to proved them wrong. Maybe in a weird way, the NFL was right. It took a cold team to make it happen and showed the NFL how much money they were losing by not being here.
Putting a pro hockey team in Las Vegas proved the skeptics wrong by being a winning combination in a “made for Vegas” structure. Having the T-Mobile arena open up has not poached any other venue in the town like some claimed would happen. Instead, like what the stadium will do, is shifting things around a little and opening up, even more opportunities for new attractions and events to come to Las Vegas to add to our already rich diversity of events, attractions and ways to separate the tourist from their money. Keeping it all within a very tight corridor of asphalt and neon in the middle of the Mojave desert!
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